


Fall On Your Knees

by scullyitsme



Category: The X-Files
Genre: A Bing Crosby Reference Appears, Christmas Angst, Christmas Eve Emotions, Gen, Mulder & Scully Actually Looking At The Sky At The Same Time, Mulder Angst, Post-Series, There Have Literally Never Been X-Files Christmases SANS ANGST So Why Start Now?, Unremarkable house, William Angst, scully angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyitsme/pseuds/scullyitsme
Summary: “Poets always say things like the snow fell silently,” Mulder said, his voice low and sleepy. Melting into her ears like warm honey, his breath tickling her neck as he leaned down to speak to her in the dark, “But it’s not totally silent. Snow has a sound.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was for leiascully's undercover challenge on tumblr :)

“Poets always say things like _the snow fell silently_ ,” Mulder said, his voice low and sleepy. Melting into her ears like warm honey, his breath tickling her neck as he leaned down to speak to her in the dark, “But it’s not totally silent. Snow has a sound.”

She tipped her head slightly to the side, smirking likewise, and watched him as he gazed out the window of the unremarkable house. It was Christmas Eve. Their first on the run. Her first away from family. Not his — a fact that didn’t seem to bother him, but that inspired a heavy sadness in her. Watching him now, his arm slung protectively over her, absently stroking the soft blanket around her shoulders, she couldn’t help but think he looked delightfully young. Childlike in his wonder and regard for the big, wet, perfectly formed snowflakes that were floating ever-so-slowly down from the dark sky above.

She’d always found something attractive in his boyishness (when she wasn’t finding it frustrating), but after William … well, she regarded Mulder’s sweetness with a peculiar kind of unrealized nostalgia. As though she were remembering a memory she never made.

His warm hand clasped hers and tugged. She blinked from her reverie as he was pulling her from the window, through the cluttered but homey living room, toward the front door.

“Mulder,” she protested, “What are you doing?”

“You’ll hear it,” he said, dropping her hand only so that he could grab his Parka from the back of the kitchen chair, shrugging it on but not zipping it. He jutted his chin toward her long camel coat which hung on a hook next to the door.

She sighed, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders. She draped it on a nearby rocker as she grabbed her coat and followed him out onto the porch. The sky was clear, the air cold; a sharp winter chill stinging her face. Mulder smiled into it, as a New Englander would. She watched as he trotted down over the steps and out into the snowy yard, stuffing his ungloved hands into the pockets of his coat. He disappeared into the night and for a moment her heart stalled in her chest.

“Scully!” came his voice from the darkness, “C’mon!”

She exhaled, carefully stepping onto the top step which she could see sparkling with a sheet of ice. The fresh, damp snow didn’t make a sound under her boots. When she reached him in the middle of their yard, she was unsurprised to find him with his eyes turned skyward.

“ _Said the night wind to the little lamb_ , Mulder?” she teased, slipping her cool hand into his. She could feel her lips beginning to chap and instinctively ran her tongue over the bottom one, squinting at him in the dark.

“Do you hear what I hear?” he sung off key, bouncing his head from side to side. They both chuckled, then settled into companionable silence. He reached for her other chilled hand and brought them up, pressing them against his chest inside his coat. “Listen, Scully,” he whispered without looking at her, his eyes still turned toward the snow and star filled sky.

She watched him for another moment, drinking him in with long sips like the mulled cider she knew awaited them, being kept warm on the stove inside. In a rare moment when the fear and anxiety that buzzed within them both had quieted, she let her eyes close and held her breath. Together, they listened.

At first she didn’t hear anything. She opened her mouth to tell him as much, but all of a sudden, from within the silent night, there it was: the soft sound of a thousand, infinitesimal crystals shattering on sodden earth. It was hardly there, but it was there: a sort of steady, dewy sound. Like tiny breaths.

The next sound she heard was that of her own throat catching on a sob. One that she had not realized was imminent, that she had not felt until it was choking her. Her eyes shot open and she coughed, yanking her hands from his. Mulder finally tore his gaze away from the firmament and looked at her with alarm.

“What is it?” he asked, rubbing his hands along the forearms of her coat.

Her eyes felt heavy with tears, and when she looked into his she saw that his eyelashes were dotted with specks of frost. She knew if she cried her tears would probably freeze to her face before they ever properly fell, but still, she tried to hold them back.

“I heard it,” she said, her voice hushed.

His face relaxed into a wide smile, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, ducking his chin to look at her, “It sounds like life. Like breathing, almost.”

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice breaking, “It sounds like the breath of a sleeping baby.”

In the whist of the night around them, they stared at one another for a heavy moment before he reached out and pulled her flush against him. A gust of frigid wind pierced his ear drums. He held her until she stiffened in his arms, frozen not from the cold but numbed by grief. They walked back to the house in silence.

When they were back inside, he took their coats and hung them on the back of the chairs closest to the fireplace. She went to the stove and turned down the heat on the cider. He approached her slowly, as though he was afraid of spooking her, and only pressed his hand against the small of her back when she turned to look up at him, eyes glistening and damp cheeks still pink from the cold.

“Do you still have that Bing Crosby Christmas album?” she asked, letting her gaze fall from his and back to the cider as she dropped a few more currants into it.

“Yeah,” Mulder said, rubbing her back, “The vinyl, you mean?”

She gave him the tiniest little smile, “Of course I mean the vinyl,” she said, her eyes sparkling from tears and wont of a little holiday magic.

“You got it,” he said gently, leaning over to softly kiss her hair.

He left her side only long enough to set up the record player and put on the album —  which Scully had pilfered from her father’s collection. Just as he lowered the needle, Scully appeared next to him, holding two steaming mugs of mulled cider. He took one, leaning down to kiss her cheek in thanks. Crosby’s voice crooned as they settled into the couch, the room warm and dim around them. Mulder sipped his cider, his lips pursing at the rum.

“I know you were working from my mother’s recipe but despite the more harrowing truths of her life, I don’t think she ever used quite this much rum,” Mulder chuckled, setting his hand on Scully’s upper thigh. She looked overtop her mug at him, her lips curling into a faint smile.

_The silent word is pleading._

_Nails, spears shall pierce him through,_

_the cross he bore for me, for you._

“Then again, you do come from Irish stock,” Mulder reasoned, “Your mother probably made it with Guinness.”

Scully gave him a playful smack, setting her mug on a nearby end table and tucking herself up against him, her head beneath his chin, her cheek resting against his chest.

“Actually,” Scully yawned, “She likes whiskey.”

She felt Mulder’s laugh bubble up from beneath his ribs, rumbling in his chest, before she heard it.

“Well I’ll be damned. Maggie Scully likes hooch,” he laughed.

“You laugh, but she could drink you under the table, Mulder,” Scully said, her voice sleepy and muffled against his chest. A heavy silence fell between them, except for the static of the record as it changed to the next song. Scully sighed against him, “I miss her. I wish I could call her.”

“I know,” Mulder said softly. He turned his attention to the record for the moment, and when he realized what song was playing, he nudged Scully up, “I’ll change it,” he said quickly, but she reached up to pull him back down onto the couch.

“Leave it,” she said, nuzzling against him again.

“But “The Holly and The Ivy” makes you cry…” he said, stroking her hair.

“I know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She let her eyes flutter closed against the tears as they came, curling her hands into little fists and tucking them beneath her chin as she buried her face against him, “I know.”


End file.
